We all get spammy new followers, but what exactly is the point? In this post, I thought we could chat about that.
First, what do I mean by spammy followers? I’m talking about people who are following your blog for reasons other than having any intention of reading it. I would consider a good 90% of my new followers to be spammy, and I will never see them again after that new follow shows up in my notifications.
So if the intention isn’t to read a blog, what’s the point of following it? I see two main reasons why people might do that. One is that they’re hoping that you play the follow-for-follow game (or are simply nice) and will follow them back. Another is that some bloggers have a widget displaying their followers, and the spammy person is hoping to show up there. Aside from that, though, I’m not really seeing other potential benefits that could be motivating them.
Oh, and if you get a new follower and clicking on their Gravatar in your notifications takes you to a page that says the site no longer exists, that’s probably not a spammy follower. More likely, it’s because the blogger changed their site’s URL at some point, but their Gravatar is still pointing to the old URL. WordPress doesn’t let people know when this is happening, so the blogger is probably blissfully unaware that it’s an issue. This blogging toolbox post goes into how to check and fix that.
You can remove someone as a follower if you want. Go to “My Sites” > “Stats”, and click on “Followers” near the top right corner of the page. That’ll take you to a list of your followers, and there’s a “Remove” button next to each one. I’ve found that some people are fairly persistent, either because they’ve built themselves a bot or because they’re blindly going through the Reader following any blog they find that they’re not currently following. Rather than getting into an unfollow/refollow war with these people, it can avoid much frustration to just let them be and ignore them.
If the follower’s gravatar is an obscene image (like a dick pic), you can report that to WordPress and they would probably remove it as a violation of the terms of service. Back in my earlier days of blogging, there was a dick pick gravatar that would repeatedly refollow me even though I kept deleting him. Once I reported him to WP, that stopped.
I used to get mildly annoyed by the masses of spammy followers, but now I just don’t care. Part of that is because I’ve stopped caring at all about my follower number because it’s so meaningless, so I’m not sufficiently motivated to make the effort to remove the spammy types. I know for some people, though, getting that follower number to be more reflective of reality can be very satisfying.
Do you get a lot of spammy followers? Does their presence annoy you?
The blogging toolbox series has tips to support you in your blogging journey. It includes these posts:
I have not noticed many spammy followers. I follow blogs if I like their content. Follow for follow is not something I do.
I used to be more willing to follow back blogs that looked at least sort of interesting, but then when those bloggers would never reappear on my blog, I realized they were probably just playing follow-for-follow, so I’ve gotten much more particular in who I’ll follow back.
I really have no idea how to check if someone visited my blog. I tend to ignore such blog stats as a rule…sigh.
It probably makes for a much nicer blogging expereince that way.
Good point. Thank you!
So, I keep oscillating between writing for myself and wanting someone to read what I’ve written. I catch myself many times repeatedly checking if someone’s visited my website and then I feel stupid for a bit for doing it, but then, some amount of validation doesn’t hurt, especially when you are starting off, like me. So, at this point, the follower count does seem to be motivational for me. Of course, at this point, you are the only follower I have 😀. Probably I’ll get to where you are now with respect to being interested in the follower count, when I see the quantity in terms of the number and the quality in terms actual followers who read. 🙂
Stats were a bigger deal for me too when I first started blogging back in 2017. I think it’s probably always hard to build a following starting off from scratch, but it can be particulary hard depending on the niche you’re writing in. I feel like the mental health blogging miche has shrunk considerably, making it harder to find new readers who will actually be keen on interacting.
Interesting. Why do think it has gone down? With destigmatisation and people looking at mental health as a more common thing, readership would go up. Alternatively, easy access to therapists might mean they don’t feel the need to read such blogs.
*as a more common thing, I would assume readership would go up.
I’ve wondered about that too, and I think it might people shifting over to other platforms, whether that be Instagram, TikTok or whatever. Blogging by its nature is likely to be more time-consuming and to get less reach, so unless people prefer to write long-form content, other plattforms might be more appealing.
That is so true. People prefer short form content these days. Everything needs to be easier and quicker. I’m on Instagram as well, but within a few posts I realized blog links don’t help. They want to swipe and read the content in a few photos. Forget about others, even I like shorter easier to read content. Patience is a rare commodity these days 🙂
It is, and it’s particularly hard for people who have an illness that limits their mental energy. Writing and reading seems to come most naturally to me, though, probably because that’s what worked best for me back when I wasn’t depressed.
I only dislike spammy followers if they only comment to link their work. I’m used to followers not always commenting. There are many people who will only like but not comment. It could be time constraints for many.
I almost always remove links left in comments unless there’s a really good reason for them to be there.
🙂 Yes, I do get spammy new followers all of the time.
I am of the opinion that a lot of bloggers are actually following more blogs than they can actually handle. Therefore, they are overwhelmed by the sheer number of blogs that they are following (This usually results in those people checking out the blogs of their fellow bloggers whenever they have the time).
Also, a lot of people who follow our blogs will never interact with them (So, you are definitely right about the follow-for-follow game).
I regard to people not adding their current URL to their Gravatar image, I would have to refer to it as a case of utter ignorance; I would not refer to everyone that does this as “Spammers”.
It is very rare that I would remove a follower.
I specifically remembered removing a follower because their site was promoting article-spinning software and I feared that they would spin my blog posts instead of coming up with their own.
All very good points. And yes, a site promoting article-spinning software is definitely a major red flag!
I had one today, but I just ignore them. I think they hope you click over to their website and either get more ad views (since that means more penitential money) or something else.
I can definitely see hoping for more ad views as a major motivator.
I just cleared 158 spammy comments today, didn’t check if they also follow. Meh.
I’ve actually not been having too many problems with spam comments lately. It seems to come and go in waves.
Ewwwww about the dick pic!
I get some spam on WordPress but LinkedIn is so much worse. At least that’s the case for me.
When blogs follow me here without leaving a comment first, there’s a 50% chance I’ll check them out. That percentage is steadily decreasing as my time and attention are limited.
But I agree with you. It’s best to leave them be and move on.
Love your blogging posts 💕
Thank you❤️
Sometimes I won’t pay attention to new followers, but then I’m notice they’ve been liking/commenting on my blogs, so I’ll go check them out. I can be a bit slow on the uptake, though.
Perfect timing for this article. I often get followers who don’t interact with me. They don’t like or comment and I often wonder, “what’s the point?” And on the opp end of the spectrum, I get ppl who mass-like my blog posts without reading them. I ignore ppl like that who are so desperate that they lack mannerisms. These things used to bug me but they bug me less now that I don’t pay that much attention to the notifications anymore. I will follow for follow only if they I like their content, but there’s no guarantee I will follow them back, especially if they don’t interact with me or spam the crap out of my notifications.
Sounds like a good approach.
Wow, I didn’t even know we could see our followers. Very interesting! I don’t allow comments so I guess that limits the number of spammers. Indeed, the the follow-for-follow game seems quite pointless!
Thanks for all these blogging posts.
It really does seem pointless.
I would venture to guess that 99% of my followers are spam. I did pay attention, though. What I don’t understand is when I see someone “like” a post, but there are no views. I did understand how that works!
Don’t! Darn autocorrect!
They’re probably just hoping that you’ll have noticed their like (and not notice the non-view) and like their post in return.
I get a lot of spammy comments…
Do you find that being self-hosted has made a difference? I noticed that when I switched from the WordPress Personal to the Business plan that there was a change in the comment form, and that resulted in me getting less spam than I used to get.
I’m not sure if my site is self hosted. It’s set up through a company that manages the SEO and site changes for a monthly fee. Spam has picked up this year. A lot of it is on my old posts
Yeah, your site is self-hosted. Anytime you’re not dealing with WordPress.com directly, you’re self-hosted. But the spam never stops…
That’s good to know. Any comments have to be approved before it shows up on the site anyway. A lot of snake oil type websites with poor grammatical comments and porn links…
Lol
Yep I get spammy ones… and don’t get how they manage to like a post but not get any views… or they just all end up liking one post… or something weird.
I just ignore them. If they have an actual site, fair enough, but otherwise they are not worth the hassle. If they wanna follow, up to them. I already know within a little who may interact and who won’t.
You are really the only one who interacts or likes my posts… ❤️
I think there are a lot of people who just scroll through tags in the WP Reader and like every post without even looking at them. That level of fakeness seems pathetic.
I like reading your posts because I love you. ❤️
You are the most loyal, lovely and beautiful person I have ever met on here. I feel privileged you even look at my posts ❤️❤️
I’m so glad you’re here sharing this space. ❤️❤️❤️
I’m glad you are here too… really… you make my world better just by being here….❤❤❤
You make my world better by being you too. 💕💕💕
And I love you too ❤️
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💖💖💖
Ashley are you OK? I’m worried about you…
Oh goody, thank you I think you just solved a problem I’ve been having with Gravatar directing people to my old blogger site – I had to change my site URL in 2 places on my WP site and then it automatically changed on the Gravatar site – let’s see if it worked when I post this comment…
Yay! It worked! Thank you!
Yup, it’s working just fine now. I don’t know why WP doesn’t have a built-in check that will warn people when the address their gravatar is linked to isn’t actually their blog.
On the WP site in one place the url wasn’t entered at all and in the other spot it was the Blogger url…The Gravatar site was all correct.
I wrote some posts about the keto diet when I tried it and I get likes without views. Some follow but I don’t follow back.
I wonder if some tags are more prone to getting likes without views compared to other tags. The whole thing seems so fake and obnoxious, and I wish people iddn’t do it.